A Man Made up as He Went Along

Abstract

Take this man who has the manners of a waiter in a good restaurant, a savage jaw and perplexed eyes. Set him down where? In a ridiculously small apartment in one of the many wrong parts of town. He takes his coffee black, that much is sure. He smells the odor rising from the white cup and blesses it like a priest. But he is not a priest, no, no, no. He believes in something quite different. But what is it? Let that restlessness consume his body. don't smoke, he told himself, I used to smoke Pall Malls. I drink carefully because I want to be able to drink from now till the day I die, and not of drink. Ho, ho, he said. don't want to die of drink. But maybe tonight. Tonight was a long way off. How long remained to be seen. The thing about a city is to get into the rhythm of it, let it take you along. Somewhere there is a dance instructor snapping his fingers. We're all in this together and you only need to apologize you step on somebody's toes. They will do the same for you - maybe. Eros arises in the subway. A woman with a lot of curly, straw colored hair and he are gripping the same maypole. Will I be arrested, he thought, if I plant my mouth on your mouth? He asked his fellow passengers: Have we all been invited to this party? There won't be enough lifeboats. Out. They left the tunnel in a body and up the stairs to the morning light. Here again he was almost a priest. His benediction began: O wan daylight, my princess. Slip into something a little more comfortable, he told the city. like slovenly women. Grey Rock was waiting. He Pressed his number - one of the many he knew. There was no Muzak, no sprightly dirge. He marched through the sea of desks to his and bent to his task, a seated field hand. When the load lightened about 10:30 he went to the coffee cart. The vendor had been uprooted from an ancient village and still didn't know what hit him. When he got back to his desk, he thought: My name is Jason - already that makes me a rogue. I may or may not be married. I do this for a living. Ho, he thought, I may or may not be married. What would she think of that? On the way to the Greek coffee shop he grabbed the Daily News, his cloak of concealment. Long Island had provided a murder and Staten Island a rape. He got mustard on a little item about a seeing-eye dog with rabies. The blind master died in agony and his dog had been put down. No, no, no, he was only kidding. There wasn't such a story. There was a mustard stain all right, but it covered an article on auto dealerships. Auto dealerships were another way to go, another way, as the existentialists used to say, of being in the world. …